“Perhaps the outpouring
of sympathy for [the falsely arrested Duke lacrosse players] Reade
Seligman, Collin Finnerty and David Evans is just a bit misplaced....As
students of Duke University or other elite institutions, these young men
will get on with their privileged lives....They are very differently
situated in life from, say, the young women of the Rutgers University
women’s basketball team.”— Nightline co-anchor Terry Moran writing on his “Pushback”
blog on ABCNews.com on April 12, the day after the North Carolina
Attorney General declared the players innocent of highly-publicized rape
charges. [66 points]

“As part of our ongoing series of reports on the environment, ‘America
Goes Green,’ we take on the question that can make otherwise competent
adults quake with fear. We’ve all been there. You come to the end of the
checkout line and then comes that question: ‘Paper or plastic?’ For that
one brief moment, we grocery buyers are made to feel like the fate of
the planet hinges on our decision.”— NBC’s Brian Williams on the May 7 Nightly News. [47]

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“[High ratings for Fox’s
American Idol] cannot solely be explained by technological advances or a
regression in human nature. It cannot be a coincidence that television
voting rights arose so soon after the 2000 election left slightly more
than half the voting population feeling cheated. Those who didn’t go to
the polls and fear that their abstention inadvertently made possible the
invasion of Iraq may feel even worse. Idol could be a displacement
ritual: a psychological release that allows people to vote — and even
vote often — in a contest that has no dangerous or even lasting
consequences.”— New York Times TV reporter Alessandra Stanley in an April 4
article. [46]

CNN’s Larry King: “Are you sorry about that [60 Minutes National Guard
story] now?”Ex-CBS anchor Dan Rather: “No.”King: “You think the report was correct?”Rather: “Yes. And I think most people know by now that it was correct.”— Exchange on CNN’s Larry King Live, September 20. [37]